


I Just Gravitate Towards You

by maydayparade8123



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:19:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maydayparade8123/pseuds/maydayparade8123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annabeth's so in love with him, it kind of hurts sometimes.</p><p>OR - the many stages from ages eleven to eighteen of an AU Percabeth relationship where Percy gets popular and Annabeth doesn’t.</p><p>
  <b>(Available in <a href="http://ficbook.net/readfic/2616353">Russian</a>, translated by <a href="https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6302637/">Victoria</a>.)</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Just Gravitate Towards You

Eleven.

They kiss for the first time, and neither of them really know what they’re doing at all. Percy’s never kissed a girl, but he just wanted to kiss Annabeth and so he did.

Annabeth kisses him back, and it’s short. It’s innocent. There’s no intentions behind it; just pure affection.

Then he says goodnight and nearly runs to his house next door.

They never talk about it again, at least for a few years. Percy was nervous and Annabeth thought it was nothing, because how could he like  _her_?

* * *

Thirteen.

They’re in the eighth grade and Percy’s the captain of every sports team there is at their school. Annabeth faded into the background when Percy got popular. He moved into a different apartment with his mother’s new boyfriend. She’s the nerd, always gets perfect scores on all of her work and never shows up unprepared. The teachers love her, the students think she’s annoying.

Every student besides one.

Percy knows that it’s just simply  _Annabeth_  and when he hears kids moaning about how she always one-ups them, he smiles. Annabeth would never want to be anything besides perfect. He doesn’t talk to her much any more – or at all really – because she’s out of his league. She’s too good for him. Annabeth’s a teenager now, and she’s even more beautiful than he remembered. Her legs are longer and her eyes are even grayer and she’s just  _better_  than everyone else unintentionally.

Annabeth noticed that Percy changed, too. She’s too scared to talk to him, after all, she’s one hundred percent sure that he’s regretted kissing her ever since it happened. It’s been two years, but she still remembers the way she couldn’t stop smiling for days. Percy’s friends with everyone, everyone besides her, and he’s just as goofy and ridiculous as she remembers. Sometimes, she’ll hear stories about his antics and they always make her grin crazy big because Percy’s still Percy, even if his muscles are bigger and his eyes are prettier and he’s more awkward.

* * *

Fourteen.

Percy gets a girlfriend.

She’s pretty, and Annabeth hates her; envies her.

Her red hair is unique, so much brighter and more colorful than Annabeth’s common blonde. Her hair is curlier than Annabeth’s, and prettier. The girl is better height for Percy, and her green eyes contrast with her hair. Everyone thinks she’s beautiful, and she is. She’s a cheerleader, and she flirts with everyone, but that must be what Percy wants.

Annabeth briefly considers trying out for cheerleading, but just - no.

Percy doesn’t really like his girlfriend.

His friends told him that he should go for it, because she liked him and “she’s hot" and he’d be more popular if he had a girl on his arm.

But Rachel’s hair isn’t blonde and it’s too frizzy and her eyes aren’t pale and grey and her skin is too light. She has freckles, and Percy hates them. Her voice is too high pitched and she’s just  _wrong_.

She’s not Annabeth.

Percy sees her from time to time, but now she’s in all the honors classes and Percy’s not smart enough. Sometimes, he’ll see her walking confidently down the hallway, not caring about the spiteful looks sent after her for being better.

Percy thinks she’s just as beautiful at fourteen as she was at eleven, if not more so.

He wants to talk to it, but.

Fear.

Rejection.

It burns, how much he wants to hear her voice, if only to snap at him. Even if she’s yelling. He just wants to hear it.

* * *

Fifteen.

Percy is taller. Percy is more mature, and his black hair has grown out longer, contrasting severely with his vivid green eyes. His jaw is more defined and his shoulders are broader. He has an air of confidence about him, and he still beats everyone at every sport and steals all the girls’ hearts.

Annabeth realizes she misses him one day, when he wears an old hoodie of his stepdad’s. It fits him, and she finds herself remembering the days when it would hang off his arms loosely as they chased each other in the cold December weather.

She misses him, and it stings.

She bets his voice is deeper, that his eyes sparkle even more when he smiles. She thinks it’s ridiculous that she still has a crush on him after four years.

Then Percy breaks up with his girlfriend.

Word is, he broke up with her because he loved someone else.

Percy Jackson, the heartbreaker.

Annabeth hears people talk about him, and she wants so bad to correct them, tell them all that Percy is perfect and he’s not a bad person at all. She wants to scream out loud in frustration, simply because she knew him, still does know him, better than anyone else, and it’s just not fair.

It’s petulant and childish, and she knows it is.

Percy walks by her one day and says hi.

Annabeth thinks her heart dropped out of her chest.

She stops breathing for a few seconds, minutes, hours, days, months – who knows? The world started spinning.

His voice is deeper, she noticed.

* * *

Sixteen.

Percy’s just turned sixteen, and he has the world in the palm of his hand. The girls’ still whisper about him and laugh, but the things they say are more explicit. All the guys envy Percy.

He’s even better looking, something that Annabeth didn’t know was possible. He must have been going to the beach, because he’s tan. He’s so, so, so tan and his arms are defined. Percy isn’t just attractive anymore, Percy looks like a  _god_. He’s sinfully gorgeous, sinfully flawless, and sinfully out of reach.

She risks a smile at him every once in a while, just desperate to see if those green eyes still sparkle like they used to when he smiles back.

They do.

Percy loves the smiles Annabeth gives. They’re more beautiful than he remembers, and it’s reflex to smile back. He wants to talk to her, and he will. He will, he will, he will.

Courage. He needs courage.

And then – he gets it.

The late bell rang and Annabeth’s books are still spread out over the floor. Her face is flushed red with both anger and embarrassment. Percy assumes someone knocked them out of her hand. That irritates him.

He picks up her art folder, smiling at all the sketches of buildings. She’d always said she wanted to be an architect. Even at eleven.

But then – there’s a picture.

One of them, at a diner on Percy’s tenth birthday. He has cake on his cheek and Annabeth is mid laugh as he sports a confused expression. He beams at the memory.

Then Annabeth is slipping the folder from his hands, blushing even further. She mutters a thanks, and moves to step around him. Percy grabs her wrist – or maybe her hand – the details are blurry as he struggles to find something to say, anything to make sure they talk again. He needs to hear her voice, and her laugh, and see her smile.

"My mom is making spaghetti tonight. Wanna come over?"

It odd, Annabeth thinks. Spaghetti is her favorite, and where did this come from?

"Sure."

And then Annabeth sees a genuine smile. She’s sees his green eyes light up, still contrasting with the strands of black that brush the tips of his eyelashes. He’s so amazingly gorgeous it’s surreal.

"Wait for me after school."

And  _okay_ , Annabeth thinks, she can do that.

She’s ten minutes late to art class, but she doesn’t care. She’d always been one for punctuality, always wanted to be on time.

Everything is blurry now. The worst things seem the best because the world is a little brighter because Percy.

After school, she realizes that she has no clue where to go. She decides to stand by the stairs outside the front doors of the school and tell her dad where she’ll be.

He’s okay with it, but why wouldn’t he be. He won’t be home anyways.

But then Percy’s there, tripping over his untied Converse and smiling huge, pulling on her hand.

And then it hits Annabeth that they’re holding hands.

He tries opening the wrong car three times, and Annabeth tries so hard not to, but she laughs at him. She calls him ‘Seaweed Brain’.

She’s never seen Percy’s smile so bright.

It’s funny, the way they fall right back into place. They catch up a bit on the drive home in Percy’s new, but not really all that new, car. It’s new to him, but it’s beaten down and rickety. Annabeth doesn’t mind. It’s very…  _Percy_.

He sings at the top of his lungs to the radio, and he’s terrible, he really is, but it still makes Annabeth smile. He’s exactly the same, if you don’t count appearances.

Ms. Sally is older, but prettier. She still looks like the mother Annabeth never had and smells like sugar. She hugs Annabeth for a good ten minutes, nearly crying at the sight of the young girl who was practically her daughter.

And later, when Percy finally gets Annabeth away from his mom, he hugs Annabeth, too. He forgot that her hugs were the best.

"Missed you, Wise Girl."

And yeah, he kind of did.

Dinner reminds him so much of when he was younger that he has the strange urge to go watch cartoons and eat too much chocolate, then climb trees with Annabeth.

Annabeth says she should get home, but Percy pouts at her, so she  _has_  to stay.

They watch Disney movies for a few hours, laughing at the jokes they were too young to get when they were eleven and smiling at the memories that went along with certain parts of the movies.

When The Lion King is over, Percy is laying on the couch, and Annabeth is sitting on the floor in front of him. He’s playing with her curls, the same curls she’s had since she was eleven. He finds them fascinating. They’re a lot like him. They pull away, but then they spring back, even clingier than before.

He wants to hug Annabeth over and over, and maybe kiss her again like he did when they were eleven.

But what they just got back is too fragile. And he doesn’t want to screw it up again.

Eventually, Annabeth does have to go home and Percy is devastated. He wants her to stay. He wants to get to know his best friend all over again.

But, her making promises to come back as soon as possible was good enough.

He drives her home, driving as slowly as possible, not wanting their time to run out, but before he knows it, they’re in front of her house. And Percy sees his old childhood home.

Caught in a moment of nostalgia, he grabs her hand and squeezes. She catches his green eyes in her gray.

"Climb a tree with me."

And it’s stupid, and childish, but it’s  _memories_ , and when has she ever been able to say no to Percy?

They do, and Annabeth makes it closer to the top than he does. They’re a bit scared to go higher; these branches are a lot narrower and weaker than they used to be. They sit there for a while, in the silence only filled with their breathing, and Percy thinks that he wants to stay here forever.

Annabeth missed times like these. Silences with Percy were never uncomfortable, but right now she just wants to hear his voice.

So, she jumps down out of the tree, landing gracefully on her feet as always. Percy decides to climb down, since he’d rather not embarrass himself in front of the most beautiful girl in the world.

She lays on the ground and stares up at the sky.

Percy lays parallel to her.

They just  _fit_.

He hesitantly takes hold of her hand, and she lets him. She missed this, missed being with him.

"I missed you, Seaweed Brain."

And yeah, she kind of did.

* * *

Seventeen.

Percy has a girlfriend.

She’s gorgeous, flawless, and everything he could ever want.

She’s Annabeth.

Annabeth’s so in love with him, it sort of hurts sometimes. In some ways, she thinks she’s loved him since they first became best friends as children. In other ways, she thinks it’s when familiar lips met hers just a few weeks ago.

Everytime he kisses her, she gets out of control butterflies, despite the amount of time they’ve been together. She can’t help it. The way he makes her feel is sort of ridiculous.

Percy can’t stop kissing her. He can’t stop falling further and further in love with her. He can’t stop craving her presence like a druggie craves their fix. He loves her more than life itself.

People say things. People say that he’s dating her because he felt sympathy for the loser. People will always say things that aren’t true.

Percy’s dating her because he loves her. He’s dating her because she’s his best friend, and he couldn’t live without her.

* * *

Eighteen.

They finally did it. Today’s the day they graduate high school, and Percy wants to be a marine biologist. By some miracle, a college accepted him, and he’s going to school right here in New York.

Annabeth’s not.

She got into a school in California, quite literally on the other side of the world. Percy knows they have a bit of time before college starts, but still, he thinks, it’ll be terrible without her.

And it is. He calls her all the time, even when she’s sleeping because now their time zones are different. He leaves messages just to say that he loves and misses her. They Skype sometimes.

But it’s not the same as having Percy’s green eyes boring into her and baring her soul. It’s not the same thing as running his hands through her princess curls. It’s not the same as hugging each other like you never want to let go.

He still loves her, and even if girls make very obvious advances with him, they aren’t her. And therefore, it’s impossible to feel anything for them.

Percy decides to surprise her on her birthday, leaving a voicemail and saying that she better have a great day and that he loves her and that she’s beautiful and he misses her. He even makes sure that her birthday card will be there.

And, if he can help it, so will he.

It’s early when he arrives in San Francisco, CA. He has no clue where he is, but he does know what a cab is, so he hails one and shoves an address in their face.

Before he knows it, he’s in front of her dorm room. He knows she has a friend who stays with her, and he knows that she’s a little grumpy since she didn’t like them Skype-ing extra early or super later into the night.

He knocks anyways.

He hears rustling, an annoyed groan and the sound of a door opening.

Oh.

The door opened.

Then he’s basically mauled, Annabeth knocking him to the ground and exclaiming about how he wasn’t supposed to be here but it’s so great that he is and that she loves him so much and it’s sappy, and terrible, and cheesy, and she’s still in the middle of talking when he kisses her.

Kissing Annabeth now is so much more different from when they’re eleven. Back then, he hardly knew what a kiss was, or what it meant.

Now, he knew that he could throw his whole being into a kiss with Annabeth, saying everything he wanted to with a bold pressing of lips.

He kisses her, probably more passionately than he ever has, but he just missed her so much, and she’s just there and perfect.

When the need for air is pressing, he leaves his forehead resting against hers, still trying to regain his breath and his cool. Annabeth tends to kiss all of his brain cells away.

He kisses her one more time – softly, not roughly, slowly, not desperately.

"Surprise," he says, after his breath is back.

And she laughs, something that is halfway crying, and he hugs her.

She’s lovely, and he hates when she cries. She’s already dressed, since she always was an early riser, and Percy grabs her hand after carelessly tossing his things on her bed. He probably wouldn’t be staying there, but he needed some time with her, now.

They got coffee, then they walked in the park. Then they got ice cream and did everything that they could think of before heading back to Annabeth’s dorm.

He kisses her again, telling himself that every kiss would be the last one, but every kiss kept feeding his horrible Annabeth addiction, so it sort of never happened. They probably stood outside her door for a good hour before she said she needed sleep. And Percy did too, thanks to a massive amount of jet lag.

"I love you," he said.

"I love you, too," she said. “I missed you, Seaweed Brain."

"I missed you, Wise Girl."

And yeah, he kind of did.


End file.
